Thanks to Ray for this Report …

Fitzharrys School played host to a packed meeting at which Brendan Cox, husband of murdered MP Jo Cox, spoke about Jo’s life, the More in Common movement, and his recently-written book of the same name.

In June 2016 Jo Cox was shot and stabbed to death by a Nazi sympathiser who was angered by her support for refugees. Brendan explained how the book’s title came from Jo’s maiden speech in the Commons, in which she said ‘While we celebrate our diversity, what surprises me time and time again as I travel around the constituency is that we are far more united and have far more in common than that which divides us’.

The meeting took the form of an interview, ably conducted by Mark Thornton, former owner of Mostly Books in Stert Street, followed by audience questions. Brendan firstly described the traumatic effect Jo’s death had had on everyone, particularly him and the children – and the help they had in coping with it. The book, he said, was the unintended result of advice from a grief counselling expert for him to keep a diary of events and feelings so that, in later years, he could help both himself and their children understand what had happened.

Brendan went on to tell the meeting something of his and Jo’s history of working together for Oxfam, and their work and shared interest in humanitarian projects in Bosnia, Afghanistan, the Middle East and elsewhere. Their shared interests and moral standpoint on the confrontational nature of today’s world, formed the basis for the More in Common movement. This, and coping with Jo’s death, were boosted by Brendan’s firm belief that anger and hatred is the wrong reaction to any event – even his own wife’s murder.

The audience was completely enthralled by Brendan’s candidness and readiness to answer their questions on both emotionally difficult as well as more down-to-earth topics. The evening really was an emotional roller-coaster moving between humorous memories of life with Jo and heart-breaking moments of life without her. One particularly poignant story concerned Jo’s funeral – a private affair with just a handful of guests. When his son saw the crowds along the route, there to pay their respects, he turned to his father and marvelled, ‘I knew that people loved Mummy, but I didn’t know this many people loved her.’

Aside: Abingdon has its own More in Common group which focusses on actions we can take at a local level to connect our communities. They host monthly drop-in ‘Community-Tea‘ at St Ethelwold’s and are planning a second ‘Great Get-together‘ in June.